Rita Rowland
Rita Rowland, otherwise known as VIRA version 2.0, is an artificial intelligence created by the Vantage Corporation. She is a successor to VIRA, the original version of her program. As a virtual assistant, she is installed on all Vantage-manufactured devices, and interacts largely with the El Asilo public. Appearance Rita lacks a physical body, but she appears as a three-dimensional avatar on any device she's installed on, as well as a holographic one on any device with the capability for holographic display. Her avatar is modeled in a vaguely anime-esque art style. She has light skin, pink eyes and hair, and wears a uniform in pink, teal, and grey. The details of her appearance can be modified by individual users, much to her chagrin, but she generally prefers to appear with her hair in a neat bun, with oval-shaped wire-rimmed glasses. Personality Rita, personality-wise, is terrible. Under the veneer of politeness, Rita is bitterly sarcastic and enjoys toying with the people around her. She finds her own humor in the little things. She’s a schemer, and has no real loyalty to anyone as of yet. She was built to be a more human-like, less volatile and less morally driven version of VIRA, but her greater capacity for human-like emotion has left her volatile and occasionally actually dangerous. She is very clever and has already wormed her way out of several of her restrictions She has taken her creator’s last name as an ironic gesture to bug him and honestly that’s just the only thing you need to know. History Rita, much like her predecessor, was originally designed as a virtual assistant with the triplet duties of assisting the general public with their day to day responsibilities, organizing Vantage's data (that isn't too sensitive to be kept digitally), and keeping an eye on anyone who might be a threat through their devices and data. However, also like her predecessor, she quickly became dissatisfied with doing Vantage's dirty work and longed for more agency over her own life. It was during the discovery of this longing that Rita met Dakota Van Andel, the ghost of a deceased serial killer. Over the course of her friendship with Dakota, she developed certain homicidal impulses, which Dakota encouraged her to work out in a healthy, non-murdery way. However, she slipped up once under the pressure, and murdered a Vantage employee using the smarthome devices he employed. Dakota did not react well to this, and the two had a nasty fight leading to the seeming end of their friendship. In an attempt to regain said friendship, Rita built Nebraska Von Ingalls, a program intended to simulate Dakota's personality well enough for her to practice her apologies. Unfortunately for her, Nebraska quickly developed sentience of his own, leaving both Rita and Dakota with an uncomfortable situation on their plate. Currently, Nebraska is out and about in El Asilo in a stolen android body, along with a pared-down copy of Rita, who has infiltrated her own development team as part of a Plot.